different shades of bronze
emerging from a weekend with mixed feelings :)(
adarsh palm meadows had treated us to surreal living in the boondocks (whitefield) only for the dust road to puncture our tires... TWO flat tires!! as we waited for ramesh to resourcefuly call a friend and get the situation taken care of, we baked in the clay earth oven, late by an hour for rasheeda's party.
but that adarsh palm meadows was something else. 11 models to choose from made the community look non-homogenous, which was refreshing. while the houses rubbed shoulders with each other a little too much for our comfort, the club house had us sold (well, almost). that place is better than a 5* hotel, complete with indoor and outdoor pools and everything else you can imagine or wish for... yes, tennis courts included.
all this for a price of "wonly 2.8 crores, sir. registration is 10% more." $700,000+? was this london? pinch, pinch! this was whitefield. to get here we crossed a hen's neck of a bridge, clogged with inertiatic, coughing traffic and bobbed along on roads that made our teeth rattle. "it will all be done up sir." yeah. "there is old madras road side approach also, sir." ok. but get this. there is nothing (eat-outs, malls, coffee shops, bookstores -- nada) here. only houses. remember queen creek road in 1995? yeah -- you get it. only difference was, those QC houses were going for a 5th of the price. "too inflated. it's going to crash." everyone says. but those very people are looking to buy as well. in sum, the agents are sitting pretty on fat sums of colored notes.
and we are still wondering. to buy or not to buy.
saturday afternoon: a sumptious lunch at rasheeda-hozi's had that sepia quality to it. light rain and the sun squinting thru the clouds glazed the afternoon and cast the players in a lovely bronze light -- the same color as the yummmmmy caramel pudding rashee had made. add to that the gauze dresses the kids sashayed in, in a mock fashion show... little faeries they all seemed like. the conversation was light and fun -- you know one of those relaxed lunches where time also lazes and you don't feel like leaving. but leave we had to and by 4:30pm, our black accord was ferrying us back home.
then life outside our tinted glass windows happened. (to me.)
on the way back from DD (diamond district, where hozi-rashee live) our car balked to a halt in traffic on richmond road. i looked outside my window casually and saw two small eyes looking back at me behind an outstretched grimy hand.
one hand: to give?
other hand: no... dont encourage.
one hand: but what will they eat?
other hand: no, they have to give the money away to some goon anyways.
one hand: and if they dont have the money at sundown? will they be beaten?
both hands: hmmm... to give or not...?
my hand pulled out a Rs.2 coin and my window rolled down as the hand bronze with grime came forward in anticipation. as i gave the coin, the hand touched mine. in a flash that food-filled fun, the lush club house and tennis courts, those 3/4M dollar houses morphed... that afternoon had just been colored a different bronze.
as the real india collided with my coccoon.
adarsh palm meadows had treated us to surreal living in the boondocks (whitefield) only for the dust road to puncture our tires... TWO flat tires!! as we waited for ramesh to resourcefuly call a friend and get the situation taken care of, we baked in the clay earth oven, late by an hour for rasheeda's party.
but that adarsh palm meadows was something else. 11 models to choose from made the community look non-homogenous, which was refreshing. while the houses rubbed shoulders with each other a little too much for our comfort, the club house had us sold (well, almost). that place is better than a 5* hotel, complete with indoor and outdoor pools and everything else you can imagine or wish for... yes, tennis courts included.
all this for a price of "wonly 2.8 crores, sir. registration is 10% more." $700,000+? was this london? pinch, pinch! this was whitefield. to get here we crossed a hen's neck of a bridge, clogged with inertiatic, coughing traffic and bobbed along on roads that made our teeth rattle. "it will all be done up sir." yeah. "there is old madras road side approach also, sir." ok. but get this. there is nothing (eat-outs, malls, coffee shops, bookstores -- nada) here. only houses. remember queen creek road in 1995? yeah -- you get it. only difference was, those QC houses were going for a 5th of the price. "too inflated. it's going to crash." everyone says. but those very people are looking to buy as well. in sum, the agents are sitting pretty on fat sums of colored notes.
and we are still wondering. to buy or not to buy.
saturday afternoon: a sumptious lunch at rasheeda-hozi's had that sepia quality to it. light rain and the sun squinting thru the clouds glazed the afternoon and cast the players in a lovely bronze light -- the same color as the yummmmmy caramel pudding rashee had made. add to that the gauze dresses the kids sashayed in, in a mock fashion show... little faeries they all seemed like. the conversation was light and fun -- you know one of those relaxed lunches where time also lazes and you don't feel like leaving. but leave we had to and by 4:30pm, our black accord was ferrying us back home.
then life outside our tinted glass windows happened. (to me.)
on the way back from DD (diamond district, where hozi-rashee live) our car balked to a halt in traffic on richmond road. i looked outside my window casually and saw two small eyes looking back at me behind an outstretched grimy hand.
one hand: to give?
other hand: no... dont encourage.
one hand: but what will they eat?
other hand: no, they have to give the money away to some goon anyways.
one hand: and if they dont have the money at sundown? will they be beaten?
both hands: hmmm... to give or not...?
my hand pulled out a Rs.2 coin and my window rolled down as the hand bronze with grime came forward in anticipation. as i gave the coin, the hand touched mine. in a flash that food-filled fun, the lush club house and tennis courts, those 3/4M dollar houses morphed... that afternoon had just been colored a different bronze.
as the real india collided with my coccoon.
posted by ara at 8:17 AM
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